People get tattoos for a variety of reasons: mark a personal milestone; pay tribute; remind her/himself of how far s/he has come in life; demonstrate a love; make a statement; show loyalty; boredom; drunkenness; lost bets; and being someone’s “tattoo-demo-bitch” in prison. When one makes the decision to get a tattoo one should, and usually does, think about what s/he is trying to say and what it says about her/him; because, the results can be either beautiful or horrifying.

I am a terrible speller. There are two year-olds who can spell better than I. When I have to write something official and don’t have access to a dictionary, I’ll do a draft then show it to a couple of people to make sure I spelled everything correctly. Now, were I to get a word, saying, or lyric etched into my flesh, I’d check with about 100 people to make sure that the phrasing/spelling was correct. Then I would double-check everything with the tattoo artist to make sure it looked right to her/him before the needle hit the ink. Why? BECAUSE A TATTOO IS PERMANENT! Not only would I feel like an ass were I to get it wrong, my ignorance would be on display for all to see. Forever.

and

Yes, these people paid to have those letters drilled into their skin and didn’t check to make sure the spelling was correct. That was dumb. However, what about the tattoo artists? Did the clients do something to piss them off? Are tattoo artists bound by a code of ethics that prevents them from correcting spelling if they notice it is wrong?

Protect yourselves, people.

1. For the love of God, finish high school.

2. Become acquainted with a dictionary, book of quotes, or someone who can read such things to you.

3. Be NICE to your friendly, neighborhood tattoo artist–they can screw you over but good!

**Post Script: Recently I received a message from a reader stating that “Venni Vetti Vicci” is the title of an album by Ja Rule. In fact, it IS. However, I’m not willing to bet all my shekels that this person was paying tribute to that musician.

In court (the court of are-you-so-stupid-as-to-misspell-a-tattoo-or-not) I would be able to ask this woman “Have you heard of the artist Ja Rule?” I think that I would either get a “No.” or a “Yeah, I don’t listen to him but I saw his album cover, knew what it meant and decided that it would make a great tattoo” In which case, the back-handing would commence (penalty when it is proven that you ARE so stupid as to misspell a tattoo.)